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Grid News and Views #8
Summary:
Welcome to another Grid News and Views podcast, where this month, Connectologists® Pete Aston, Nikki Pillinger and Kyle Murchie are unpacking some of the most current and upcoming topics in grid connections.
Beginning by touching on technical limits, they discuss the projects that benefit, the pros and cons of dates being brought forward, and what good and bad technical offers look like.
This episode also addresses the ever-pertinent Connections Reform, where we have insight from Kyle who is involved in the process alongside Renewable UK, looking at solutions to some of the key problems. Kyle outlines some of the key challenges, giving an overview of the different working groups involved and lays out the main timeline we can expect to see in the coming months. Explaining the new windowed application process and giving some predictions for Gate 2 criteria, the podcast is a good precursor to our extended webinar in July about the biggest industry change for decades!
Both Pete and Kyle go on to discuss variations to DNO offers following second step offers from the ESO, detailing the new short turnarounds and highlighting what projects may be affected. After an explanation of the latest CUSC mod, they finish by discussing more generally about the current quality of data, suggesting how the DNO might help with clarity and the robustness of data sets.
In a nod to the election, Pete highlights the ever-important relevance of keeping up to date in very turbulent times!
Transcript:
00:00:00 – Pete Aston
Hello and welcome to another one of the Grid News and Views podcasts from Roadnight Taylor. I’m Pete Aston and I’m joined by Nikki Pillinger and Kyle Murchie, to go through some of the recent news and views in all things grid connections. So thank you for joining us.
Right, We’re going to go to our first topic, so Nikki, I think you wanted to talk to us about something about technical limits and what’s going on with that?
00:29 Technical Limits
00:00:29 – Nikki Pillinger
Yes. So this is almost more of a view than kind of news. So technical limits has been around for a little while, but we’re obviously going through the phases, so the DNOs have released the GSPs that are a little bit kind of easier for them to moderate, so the GSPs with thermal issues. They’re now looking at the GSPs with fault level issues and the sort of the more difficult batch like the infrastructure sites and the sites that need a lot more work doing.
Good news is that some projects have really benefited from technical limits, so this is great, and they’ve been brought forward in terms of their connection date. As ever, the DNOs are doing things slightly differently, some more differently than others.
But one of the things that I really think now needs to happen is we’ve got all this really positive momentum with technical limits and with bringing connection dates back, what we need now is for the DNOs to think, okay, so we’ve got this, this is brilliant, we now need to actually allocate resource to these technical limits offers and we need to really really start bottoming out how we actually deliver all of these projects, because you know delivery timescales are quite challenging at the moment as they are, lead times for equipment have gone right up, as an example I had a circuit breaker the other day that was on a four month lead time, now on a 12 month lead time. So really, really getting to grips with how long these projects are actually going to take in delivery and adequately allocating resource within the DNOs and also sort of external contractors to that.
00:02:00 – Pete Aston
So from your experience, Nikki, so for those who don’t know, Nikki does a lot of work post acceptance mainly, don’t you, sort of trying to help clients move their projects forward from the acceptance point through to delivery.
So in your experience, those customers who are receiving good technical limits offers, are they all wanting to proceed? So the ones that you’re dealing with, are they all wanting to proceed or are there other issues the developers have got that are preventing them from actually moving forward, like planning or other things like that.
00:02:37 – Nikki Pillinger
I think most of them are looking to proceed, in some instances the technical limits offers have not actually created that much of an acceleration, so it might be you had a 2028 date and now you have a 2027 date, which often isn’t particularly helpful, and sometimes you can actually want a little bit more leeway in a project, especially if there’s challenges, if you know there’s going to be challenges around delivery both from sort of an internal and a DNO resource point.
I suppose it’s also quite difficult for developers because everyone’s taking a different view in terms of whether it’s worth progressing a site much or not, you know, if you have a 2030 whatever connection date, then you’re not going to put an awful lot of effort normally into sort of getting planning or getting land or anything, whereas some developers have (also we have Gate 2 coming in at the end of the year, so that’s also kind of another race to land rights and planning and everything.) So yeah, people are now thinking, can we actually achieve this because this isn’t something that we thought we could do initially. So it’s figuring out whether it’s really for your business and your timescales.
00:03:48 – Pete Aston
So just. Okay, thanks for that. Picking up on the issue of you talked about 2028, 2029 connection dates. So I thought the purpose of technical limits was accelerating connections so that a customer can connect prior to large scale transmission reinforcements being done. So are you saying the 2028, 2029 connection dates are the DNO dates that they’re getting given for connection or is the 2028, 2029 date when technical limits can be removed and they can have a sort of, you know, unconstrained connection.
00:04:27 – Nikki Pillinger
So some of the ones that I’ve seen originally they had a 2028 connection date and it’s come back to 2027. However, there are a lot of technical limits offers that obviously the DNO has to do quite a lot of work in that area as well. So, you know, in some cases, almost like the DNO work will actually take longer than the transmission work will too, so you know you could actually have a 2028 transmission connection date, but the DNO might not actually be done until 2032 or something because they need to rebuild their whole substation.
00:04:55 – Pete Aston
So in those circumstances, technical limits hasn’t helped at all. So yeah, in terms of technical limits, so it’s a question to Kyle and to Nikki, What do you think constitutes a good technical limits offer or maybe what’s a bad one to contrast?
00:05:23 – Kyle Murchie
I mean, from my perspective, I think the concern is once you maybe have a technical limits offer that looks quite good from a contractual perspective in terms of date and on what that access might look like in terms of kind of forecasted curtailment, that might be fine, but it’s the detail around how that ANM scheme is going to be implemented.
So are there already agreements between the DNO and the TO and the timescales that are required? Because in quite a lot of offers I’ve seen it’s, you know, ANM scheme is the solution with a back up of an inter trip. But the danger is if we get to a point, particularly in the next couple of years, for those offers are relatively soon, if the ANM scheme, if the timescales can’t be agreed on, the technology isn’t available in those locations to facilitate what the TO needs, then the inter trip might become the solution, which is then obviously nowhere near as positive as an ANM scheme. So I think for me it’s that sort of level of detail.
00:06:22- Pete Aston
So the actual delivery of the ANM scheme itself. Potentially problematic. And for yourself, what’s constituted a good or bad tech limits offer.
00:06:33 – Nikki Pillinger
So it’s quite challenging because like I said, the DNOs are all doing it in different ways, and there’s varying levels of clarity in these offers, so I really recommend people to look at their offers, go through with a very fine tooth comb, and obviously get some advice on what may or may not actually be included in them.
One of the things that we’ve got is obviously where there are things like SGT reinforcement or DNO works. It’s all very well having an earlier connection date, but you still have this enormous risk in terms of what your actual cost might be, and what might actually need to be done. And that’s really not clear in some offers. I’ve had some that just say, oh, here’s an ANM connection, you know, you can connect earlier on an ANM basis without actually any indication of what the works are that need to be done, whether there’s any DNO costs or even a date that the constraint ends. So there really, really does have to be absolute clarity within these connection offers that people are getting for tech limits. Otherwise they, they can look a lot better and a lot less risky than they are.
00:07:40 – Pete Aston
And I guess like the headline figure for a good bad technical limits offer, is the level of curtailment, isn’t it? And, you know, I’ve seen a few tech limits offers where curtailment is very, very high, 80, 90, 100%. So clearly, you cross that off the list as very bad, unless you start digging into it and you go actually, what assumptions are being used to come up with that 100% curtailment figure. Is that at all realistic or are they making crazy assumptions?
00:08:12 – Kyle Murchie
I think part of the challenge is that some of those methodologies are quite flawed. You know, the intention was to create, a common approach for all the DNOs to take, but in doing so, you know, maybe started off in a flawed starting point, and if you then apply that, as you say, you might be getting 80% curtailment, but actually is that realistic and start delving into it. Or you might receive something that looks more positive, but actually those assumptions haven’t taken into account other factors that are actually more problematic in those areas, such as other upstream, you know, upcoming reinforcements, etc. that might have an impact for the initial years.
So yeah, definitely doing your own curtailment assessments and, and digging into that next level to understand as a minimum at least what assumptions have been made and whether they’re critical or not.
00:09:10 – Pete Aston
Yeah. And last thing on technical limits, are either of you aware of any schemes that have actually connected yet under technical limits?
00:09:16 – Nikki Pillinger
There’s one.
00:09:20 – Pete Aston
Okay. You look doubtful Nikki.
00:09:22 – Nikki Pillinger
So the whole point of technical limits, right, was that you were allowing people to connect earlier, and that’s all very well. But from someone who has a 2032 connection date, even if they’re a 33 kV project, you’re not going to have ordered your kit, you’re probably not going to have appointed an ICP, you’re not going to have done about two years worth of stuff.
There is one project that’s connected, but I think there may have been some, I think it may have been built and then wasn’t able to connect and then it was able to connect on the tech limits. So yeah, maybe some sort of dubious, it seems very odd to me that a scheme was able to connect on the tech limits three months after it was told it could connect early because you’re not going to build something in that time
00:10:10 – Pete Aston
But most tech limit schemes that are good, picking up on the points you were saying, still have some way to go before they connect like probably well into later on this year or next year
00:10:21 – Nikki Pillinger
So two three years times probably from actually being told you have an earlier connection date, you know, go and do your design, invest in DNO design and ICPs etc.
00:10:33 – Pete Aston
Right, well we are going to lose Nikki now, Nikki, where are you going now?
00:10:37 – Nikki Pillinger
Sorry, I’ve got a call with Ofgem.
00:10:39 – Pete Aston
Ofgem, how the other half live.
00:10:40 – Nikki Pillinger
I’ll leave you in the very capable hands of Pete and Kyle
00:10:45- Pete Aston
Right go and endure Ofgem and we will carry on just Kyle and myself.
00:10:50 – Nikki Pillinger
Thank you guys.
00:10:51- Pete Aston
See you Nikki.
00:10:51- Kyle Murchie
Thanks Nikki.
10:53 Connections Reform
00:10:53 – Pete Aston
So, we’re going to pick up on our next topic of conversation now. So that’s connections reforms. So, Kyle, I know you are heavily involved in connections reform. Full of it. So do you want to just first of all, tell us what you’re doing in relation to the Connections reform project.
00:11:09 – Kyle Murchie
Yeah, absolutely. So we are, an observer along with renewable UK. So we are their alternative effectively, and we are there for supporting, the communication of certain material to the renewable UK members, but also then looking ahead towards the consultation. Actually what we’re also trying to do is a bit more than that kind of flagging up with the ESO the key points as well as we’ve gone along. As an observer, you don’t actively contribute during the meeting itself, but there is an opportunity to flag aspects offline and effectively look at solutions to the key problems.
I would say that maybe the challenge when the working groups first started, of which there are two – there’s one looking at the new process and it is a transmission process, but that process will also include distribution connected projects that require transmission access or triggering transmission works, and then the other is how is it going to be applied to everyone that’s currently contracted?
Initially it was quite a large challenge, and you can imagine the conversation went on various streams before it kind of got pulled together. But certainly in the latter couple of weeks, certainly progress has been made. I’d say some would judge that there are definitely gaps and there’s definitely gaps I can see that maybe will lead to unintended consequences, and conflicts of interest that will need to be managed post implementation.
00:12:49 – Pete Aston
And so give us some sense of the timeline for how this is going to be implemented.
00:12:54 – Kyle Murchie
Yeah. So the intention on the offset is that the working group will come to consultation by the end of this month. So by the end of June, the last week in June, the consultation will be open.
The consultation document isn’t yet with the working group but should be soon, so it’s going to be quite a quick turnaround. The intention is that that consultation will only be open for, effectively those two weeks.
00:13:19 – Pete Aston
So correct me if I’m wrong, but I think there was the first connections reform consultation run by the ESO was around about this time last year, I think wasn’t it, and that was setting out a variety of options from which the current option that’s being discussed is that’s where that came from, is that right?
00:13:40 – Kyle Murchie
That’s right. So that was then taken forward, and that was a consultation done prior to the modifications being raised, and then the modifications were raised on one proposal. I would say that normally in code mods the proposal is quite tight. You know, it’s basically a modification for one or two aspects of the code, whereas this is looking at multiple aspects, it’s looking at process changes, aspects that are going to be changed through the modification, but also rely upon a lot of other, topics, you know, technical limits, others like DFTC, that’s just on the distribution side, not to mention allowable changes on the transmission side.
So lots of aspects feeding in and the consultation that coming up will affect people looking at the proposal. So where the working group have got to and kind of feeding into the ESO and altering that proposal, getting feedback from any party that wants to submit, and then the turnaround is relatively quick, so by the time we get to the end of August, the modification paper should have been submitted to Ofgem, decision in November, implementation on the 1st of January.
00:14:53 – Pete Aston
So I think you’ve said to me that you could take multiple parts of what’s going on in connection reform and in the past, in less busy times, you might have had a whole consultation, a whole modification proposal on elements of what’s going through connections reform at the moment. So it’s big isn’t it. There’s a lot of moving parts.
00:15:17 – Kyle Murchie
It’s huge, and if you looked at this absolutely, you’d split – traditionally it has been split up into many elements, and each of those would probably take two, three, four times – I’m thinking of statement of works, for example, which you were involved in, previously that took a significant amount of time to go through and be fully ironed out all the various aspects.
So I think it’s expected that what will start in January will likely need further modifications down the line. There will already be other aspects that feed in that wouldn’t necessarily be ready for the 1st of January, so while the process will be set, it is expected that as issues arise, then the ESO will prepare that maybe argent code modification to meet those edits will be made in due course.
00:16:08 – Pete Aston
So maybe further code mods to go after the main sort of code mod has been agreed and the process has been set up, and then as part of sort of moving on a little bit into the timeline of when it does get implemented, there are, so whilst connections reform kicks off in January next year, there are things that will be happening in like Q4 this year aren’t there in terms of submitting information around, Gate 2, is that right?
00:16:40 – Kyle Murchie
That’s right. So the intention going forward for those that, aren’t aware, transmission levels, if you’re looking at transmission connections, then you will have a windowed process, so where at the moment you can submit an application at any time, that won’t be the case going forward – you’ll have at this moment in time it’s indicated to be a window annually. And prior to that Q4 of the year before, so Q4 this year and into early Q1 of 2025 will be a pre-feasibility phase. And for the first year, looking retrospectively back at all those that are currently contracted. There will be, an approach to understand how many of those parties could already meet the new Gate 2.
00:17:28 – Pete Aston
Yeah, which is still being discussed, but do you want to give us a quick snapshot of what we think might be the Gate 2 criteria?
00:17:37- Kyle Murchie
Yes so Gate 2 is effectively the modification focusing on land. So it’s all about what land has been secured and land options are in place. So a letter of exclusivity is no longer enough, that would not be enough at this particular stage to get to Gate 2 and get through Gate 2, you’d have to have an option in place. There’s a lot of detail on what that option looks like, how long it’s valid for, the opportunity to then extend that, etc. But the main points are your options for the land, the redline boundary being much more set. So for distribution connections, that’s already been in place for quite some time, but for transmission connections you traditionally had no real fixed redline boundary, that’s being, that will be changed. And also setting your redline boundary in line with the energy density table. So before you could effectively have a very large redline boundary, which would give you multiple options that would now be challenged, if you are looking to take up the whole of Oxfordshire, for example, that would be a challenge because it effectively wouldn’t be valid. And similarly on the other, on the flip side as well, of course, if you were looking at building out a 500 megawatt solar farm but didn’t have enough land for that, then that would be flagged early on.
00:19:07 – Pete Aston
So I think the last thing to say on connections reform, well, two things to say. One is we have another webinar coming up in July, I think it is. So we’ve already done one webinar on connections reform, which was our most popular webinar ever that we’ve done. So we’ve got an hour and a half webinar, I think, coming up, an extended one so, that’ll be good to sort of dive into connections reform a bit deeper then.
But the second thing to say is just that, I have seen come through some, RFI requests for information from, from the ESO, to you know, basically customers out there who’ve got accepted offers, asking for some sort of idea as to whether they have these land rights that Kyle was referring to or not. So, so the ESOs trying to get a picture of, you know, how many schemes out there might pass Gate 2 or not.
00:20:05 – Kyle Murchie
Yeah. And I think the important thing to note is if you don’t pass Gate 2 you effectively sit on a gate one, that’s going to be quite different for a DNO connection compared to a transmission connection, from most DNO connections to maybe get to gate two, you’ve probably already starting off at an advantage maybe, because a lot of those, land rights etc. may be already being looked at when putting the LOA in place historically, but that wasn’t required for transmission.
But certainly for those that are coming onto transmission projects then understanding that, you know, the ESO and the DNOs are trying to get a picture of how many can move straight into Gate 2. And if you don’t meet those gate two requirements, then you are effectively sit in what’s called gate one. As you said, there’s a lot of detail around what Gate 1 and Gate 2 are, and I think getting involved in the webinar will probably be the best place for that, but it’s just flagging that lots of change and understanding your portfolio is, is really key because you either want to know, can you move forward into gate two quite quickly or not? And what’s the pros and cons of both?
21:17 Second Step Offers
00:21:17 – Pete Aston
I think we’ve said this before, but this is the biggest change for quite a few decades in terms of connections process and so on so yeah, we just can’t underestimate how significant this could be. We’ll leave connections reform there because, we can talk about it all day, literally. But we’re not going to do that.
So, the next topic which we’re going to talk about is, variations to DNO offers following second step offers from National Grid. So, the general idea was last year, 2023, the ESO were changing their construction planning assumptions and assumptions around battery modelling and so on, and the idea was to do that that they were going to put in this sort of holding period, of a step one offer for customers that didn’t include very much at all. Followed by a step two offer once they worked out what they were going to do with all their new construction planning assumptions. So I think originally the step two offer deadline was for the end of February. That then got extended out to the end of May. So theoretically now all step two offers should have been issued. So that will include direct or direct transmission customers and DNO project progression offers.
00:22:41 – Kyle Murchie
Yeah, and I think the DNO project progression offers is the probably the key one because you as a developer and owning that particular project, you may not have sight of that yet, but it therefore will be coming pretty quickly, and it’s then how quickly you’re given, so we’ve seen some that are pretty short turnaround timescales.
00:23:04 – Pete Aston
Well, we were literally just looking at one this morning, which is probably why I just put it on the list of things to talk about. So the DNOs clearly received a second step offer, so basically a variation to a project progression offer from the initial step one offer, and the DNO is now going right, here’s what this now means to you and your connection. And, you know, there was a list of enabling works as long as your arm, as ever, with lots of these things, but I think the important thing is you just picked up on that, that customer had, what, two weeks?
00:23:42 – Kyle Murchie
Yeah. I think it was two weeks or 15 days to respond, which compared to any offer you get nowadays, you would not expect, significantly longer. So it’s noting that when that comes in and lands, it’s not the 90 days you might be used to. It could be pretty short turnaround times.
00:24:00 – Pete Aston
And some of the variations will be easy, you know, won’t require a lot of thought. Some of them are going to be really significant, some of them might only change your transmission liabilities, transmission enabling works, some of them might change your DNO works. I guess we don’t really know until we start seeing them all coming through.
00:24:19 – Kyle Murchie
Yeah, it will be in the detail. And as you say, it could be that actually your security is still the same, it’s all pretty similar, but the date looks worse than it was before.
00:24:29 – Pete Aston
And in terms of schemes affected, so this could be schemes going back even into 2022, because theoretically if your, the DNO didn’t put a project progression very quickly after you accepted your offer, that project progression might not have gone in until after the two step offer process had kicked off last year. So we could be talking about schemes that go back to 2022 potentially. Maybe even longer with really poor performing DNOs, but let’s not talk about that.
So, yeah, I think it’s just worth flagging that you might get these variations coming through from second step offers, and look at them carefully, to see what they contain. So talking about transmission enabling works and the associated securities and so on, there’s been another CUSC mod that’s been approved last week I think it was. So do you just want to talk us through that?
25:26 CUSC Modification
00:25:26 – Kyle Murchie
Yeah. So I suppose the key thing is there were two modifications being proposed, one was CUSC mod, the other was a modification to the STC. So effectively between the TO and the ESO.
00:25:40 – Pete Aston
So what does STC stand for?
00:25:43 – Kyle Murchie
So it is System Operator Transmission Owner code.
00:25:46 – Pete Aston
So it’s not one the developers would generally get involved with. Developers normally sort of get involved with CUSC and CUSC mods.
00:25:57 – Kyle Murchie
Yeah. So the reason that this one was quite important or potentially quite important is biannually the TOs will forecast and provide estimates of what the reinforcement works look like, and that then is used by the ESO to calculate your securities and liabilities. This was to allow TOs not to pass on, to basically create excludable estimates where they did not have to pass on costs associated with projects that had gained construction approval in inverted commas.
00:26:31 – Pete Aston
So that’s where a TO has got approval to build this particular reinforcement scheme, and the idea was okay, once that’s happened, the TO doesn’t need to secure those works.
00:26:45 – Kyle Murchie
Yeah, so specifically it was built around circuits, so circuits and substation works that facilitated those circuits. So if you’re triggering a new brand new 400 kV substation, it’s not the removal of that 400 kV substation in its entirety, but the bays associated with the circuits coming in and those new extension of those circuits which quite often are driving significant securities and liabilities, those would be the aspects that would have been removed. And only when it gets to a point where Ofgem have through their mechanisms, it was really built around, I would say the kind of proposal was built around the LOTI approach for large onshore transmission investment, but the approach would be applicable to more modern schemes too.
00:27:31 – Pete Aston
So it would have worked nicely for developers so that as and when a scheme is approved the securities and cancellation liability would have fallen away. But…
00:27:41 – Kyle Murchie
But that was rejected by the authority. The main reason being the other modification that we mentioned, it was intended to, I think there was, yes, an overlap. We personally saw them as separate because one focused on works that would include any onshore transmission works, whereas the other focuses on anything that was in the HND so the holistic network design and the associated follow up exercise. So really looking at onshore assets that are associated with offshore contracts.
00:28:15 – Pete Aston
So basically anything that was in HND, or the HND follow up exercise, is now classed as you know, I don’t know, strategic reinforcement works or something like that, and so therefore won’t get included with securities.
00:28:30 – Kyle Murchie
Yeah. So there’s definitely overlap in certain assets, so if you were looking at maybe connecting, you’re looking at connections on islands or Shetland or Orkney etc., then it’s removing some of those HVDC and HVAC links that were significant, particularly as you got closer to your connection those would be significant liabilities. And the argument is they’re happening anyway, they’ve got construction approval, they’re moving forward, if you were to fall away, someone else would obviously fill that place.
00:28:57 – Pete Aston
So do we know then what’s going to happen, so if you happen to have an accepted scheme offer where one of these HND type works is in your offer as an attributable enabling work, how’s that going to get removed or is that unknown?
00:29:21 – Kyle Murchie
That’s unknown. So the exact process for doing that, I think importantly to note with reform coming in as well, then there will have to be a re-allocation, because if you go into Gate 1 if your moved effectively, your offer has to be moved to Gate 1 because you effectively can’t meet Gate 2 yet, then that’s one thing. That’s a big difference because you don’t have securities.
So there will be a whole process around how securities are managed during that first phase, how payments back are made, particularly cash deposits. So the reform working group is discussing that at length I would say. But yeah, between the reform process and then the natural mod process, that will have to be coming out in the wash.
But yeah, effectively you can have a position where quite quickly some of those fall away. I think importantly though, if you were in that centre of England in particular area, where actually only an hour away from the coastlines, all those works that maybe could have fallen under the CM094, that STC mod that we were talking about earlier wouldn’t fall under this mod that’s been approved.
00:30:37 – Pete Aston
So if you’re in the middle of the country, you’re far less likely to benefit from this, than if you’re on the periphery or near the coast near the HND type works.
00:30:48 – Kyle Murchie
Yeah. So as we said before, the authority has read it that these are similar in a way, and both could not be approved, and probably we had a different assumption, so it’s something that will be kind of picked up as well with the initial proposal or just to understand whether that’s going to be looked at, resolving.
So yeah, unfortunately, from a security and liabilities point of view, it’s still in that area of needing a bit of, TLC, at least where it’s yeah, there’s already significant challenges, it’s becoming more complicated and other challenges will be arising through the implementation of reform. So yeah, our ask is that a bit more focus is put on securities and liabilities as we move into 2025.
31:40 Quality of data
00:31:40 – Pete Aston
Well, we’re nearly drawing to a close, one more point to raise, I talked to Phillip earlier who couldn’t be with us on the podcast, but he wanted to just raise the issue around data. So DNOs particularly are providing more and more data, which is great. But, you know, Phillip has certainly seen some issues around quality of data, so whilst there’s a lot of data out there, some of it is dubious. Probably needs some more checking, and quality assurance type work. There still is lack of transparency around certain things, so we certainly look to the DNO to provide more and more data. And then updates to data do seem to come slowly, so some of the DNOs have like a data update facility where you can request bits of information. You know, they sort of suggest a months turn around and then two months later you’re still waiting for a turnaround. You know, they’re all very busy, but, certainly data drives a lot of what we do doesn’t in the background, so it’s really an ask, a plea to the DNO to do that checking of data, you know, get the quality right, transparency right, and provide speedy updates.
00:33:05 – Kyle Murchie
Just very quickly on that, I think it’s also retiring old data sets that are maybe updated at different frequency or, or even just flagging that really quite clearly, because quite often we’ll see the same data effectively. It might be if you look at a particular GSP, what’s actually accepted, there’s probably 3 or 4 different sources of that information on many of those DNOs websites now or portals. But I can guarantee that two might match up, but certainly not all four will, and they can be massive variations between them.
So just knowing which data set, new data sets are coming out and they’re more robust because they’re more dynamic and updated live let’s say, then understanding that’s the case, not just for us, but everyone else obviously using them is going to be key.
33:53 The General Election
00:33:53 – Pete Aston
So it’s a busy period. There’s a lot going on, and to throw into the mix, we have a general election coming up in four weeks as well. and it’s very interesting the energy, net zero, even networks is a focus around that debate, around the sort of all the electioneering and so on that’s going on, so it’s a very high profile topic at the moment, you know, with Labour trying to sort of propose that they can introduce a clean energy system by 2030 versus the existing plan of decarbonizing by 2035, and are those two the same thing, or are they different, what does clean mean, and lots of different things around that.
But nevertheless, I think irrespective of who gets elected, there’s still all the same industry changes going to be needed, corrections reform and everything that we’ve just been talking about.
So, I want to say thank you to Kyle and to Nikki, who also has left a while ago. But yeah, thank you both for joining me on this Grid News and Views podcast. Thank you to the listeners, thank you for tuning in. It’s great to have you and we really appreciate your support, and we look forward to you joining us next time. Thank you.
00:35:10 – Kyle Murchie
Thank you. Bye now.